


and my feet stuttering to make a path

by defcontwo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 16:51:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1435750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Who do you want me to be?" Stop. Pause. It's the wrong question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and my feet stuttering to make a path

**Author's Note:**

> Playing around with Natasha MCU backstory conjecture given the 1984 line in the new film. Er. This was supposed to be a light-hearted Sam and Natasha wooing each other fic but it turned into something else entirely.

The thing about Stark is, with everything else held constant -- he has always known what it is to live without limits, to want and be able to have without a second thought, without that want getting weighted down by scales and circumstance. 

It's not his fault, sure, but that doesn't make the obvious privilege with which he is cloaked in make her skin crawl any less. 

Rogers, though. She's read the history books, memorized the files -- the scrawny boy who came from nothing, growing up in one of the hardest times to be poor in the United States, a broken down apartment in Brooklyn, odd jobs and and an artist's eye; scraping by with what little he could. 

Rogers is a man who knows what it is to live as if you're barely keeping your head above the line, to live like there's always water just waiting to seep in your lungs and make itself at home, a slow, aching death. 

Looking at him, she thinks -- in a different life, could she have wound up like him? 

In a different life, could he have wound up like her? 

She guesses they'll never know. 

\- 

_Who do you want me to be?_

_How about a friend?_

\- 

SHIELD made sense to her, once. For every action, a reaction, if one side of the coin doesn't work out so hot for you, make your way over to the other. 

Here's the problem with that, though. 

Two sides but at the end of the day, they're still part of the same damn coin. 

\- 

Her mother was a ballerina. Or a revolutionary. 

Maybe she was both. It doesn't matter, in the end. 

Whatever she was, she was killed for it all the same. 

Tiny hands stemming the blood flow, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes and her mother's bright red hair stark against the dirty concrete floor of their kitchen and words whispered in a broken death rasp. 

_I love you, Natalia. Please survive_. 

\- 

These are the things she has done to survive: 

Knuckles gone white as she chokes a man to death with the garrote wire she wore like a necklace around her neck, the heavy satin of her ball gown hiked up to get just the right amount of leverage. 

Blood underneath her fingernails, a knife buried up to the hilt in the chest of a man who might have deserved it or maybe he just got in the way. She doesn't know, most days. 

She doesn't ask, most days. 

This is what she has become to survive: 

A weapon made up of disparate parts: quick, nimble fingers that can dismantle any gun in record time and put it back together just as fast, a sharp eye, a smile that lies and lies, and legs strong enough to run and keep running and never ever stop. 

On her best days, she thinks: _is this what you meant, Mama? Is this what you wanted?_ On her worst days, she doesn't even bother to wonder. 

She already knows the answer. 

\- 

She can count on one hand the number of people she knows she can trust. 

There's Nick Fury, the force of nature, the man with all the cards held to his chest -- she remembers meeting him for the first time and thinking, yes, you. They're the same, the pair of them. He's a survivor, just like her, only he's -- he's already won the race, she thought once, he's got it all figured out. 

(He didn't, really, but she can't hold it against him. None of them had it all figured out). 

There's Maria Hill, frighteningly competent and brutally honest and warm in all the ways no one would expect. 

There's Clint Barton, the first person in a long, long time to look at her and see something worth saving. 

And then there's Rogers. 

\- 

She makes it a week, from Kiev to Hamburg to Manchester, burning safe houses and tracking down sources and attracting countless stares that she refuses to shy away from -- it's all on the record, now, and she meant every word she said -- "you'll know where to find me" -- before she calls him. 

There's a click and then, "hello, you've reached the telephone of the world's most frustratingly spry geriatric, he can't come to the phone right now because he jumped off a building today and managed to break his ankle, this is his handsome, long-suffering wingman. How may I be of service?" 

Natasha smiles, in spite of herself; ducking her head, a silly, thoughtless gesture. "Hello, Sam. Nice to hear you two boys are getting along well." 

"Natasha," Sam says, and Natasha imagines she can see that bright, wide smile of his spreading across his face, warring with that expression of fond exasperation that he seems to save just for Steve's complete lack of self-preservation instincts. Something in her warms, a little, but it's not something she wants to look at too closely just yet. 

Maybe later. Maybe after. 

There's a rustling sound and then a thud and then, "Nat?" Steve's voice coming over the receiver, a little out of breath like he just had to wrestle the phone away from Sam which -- probably, he did. "Everything okay?" 

"Yeah. Just checking in. You broke your ankle jumping off a building?" 

"Took the angle wrong, landed hard. It's only twisted, it'll be fine in a few hours," Steve says and it will, she knows, but it still puts a twist in her gut, throws her back to the sight of him looking both too big and too small in a bright, white hospital bed, face swollen and blood seeping through the bandages wrapped around his abdomen. 

She's got too few friends as it is. She can't afford to lose one. 

"You started pulling on the thread." 

"I did," he says, quiet but sure. 

"Regretting it yet?"

He blows out a breath and she can hear it echo over the line. "I'll let you know. What about you? Have you…figured out your next cover?" 

"I'll let you know," Natasha says, only half teasing but it gets the response she was needling after, a sharp laugh and what was probably a rueful shake of his head. 

"Well, don't stay a stranger forever. We got kind of used to having you around. You know, I think Sam might even just have a little bit of a crush on you," Steve starts and then there's a squawk in the background, Sam's voice ringing tinny and distant through the receiver, _aw come on, man, don't do me like that_. 

"You trying to give me a taste of my own medicine, Rogers?" 

"Is it working?" He asks, all put upon innocence and barely contained smirk. 

"I'll let you know, Rogers," Natasha quips and she can still hear him laughing when she hangs up. 

\- 

_Who do you want me to be?_

Stop. Pause. 

It's the wrong question. 

It's always been the wrong question. 

_Who do I want me to be?_

\- 

She dreams about New York, sometimes. 

The thrum of adrenaline, the rush running through her veins, wind blowing in her hair and grit underneath her fingernails and the wide, grateful eyes of the civilians that she and Clint helped pull out of the wreckage of a bus. 

She's a spy, not a soldier, but she keeps getting herself drawn into one too many wars and they'll just keep on coming, she knows. The world has changed, the ground has shifted beneath them, tectonic plates and all her secrets laid bare, the balance of power upset -- like blood in the water, the sharks will come. 

She's a spy, not a soldier, but. 

Maybe she can be a little bit of both. 

\- 

"I always wondered…"

"What?" 

There's a steady beat, the thrum of rain hitting a windowpane. He's in Montreal and she's in Cape Town but still, she imagines she can see the furrowed brow, the bone-deep concern that he takes on like so many weights on his back, a heart on his sleeve and a steel-clad spine holding it all up. 

"Why me. For the Avengers Initiative, I mean," Natasha says, clearing her throat, licking her lips. She's gone through three bone-dry cappuccinos today and she can still taste the sharp, acrid caffeine in the back of her throat. She's light-headed, a little, and dwelling a little more than she likes to. "I asked Fury, once. He didn't exactly give me a straight answer." 

"Does he ever?" 

Natasha snorts. "What would you do if he did?" 

"Assume he's a robot, probably." 

"He'll be back," Natasha says, deepening her voice, letting it fall into that familiar, mockery of an accent. "It's…"

"I know, I saw it," Steve interrupts and of course, he would have. It was on the list. "I guess it doesn't really matter, though. SHIELD's gone and with it, the Avengers Initiative." 

"Do you really believe that?" 

Steve doesn't answer. 

"I think….I think the Avengers. It was something else, wasn't it? Something more," Natasha says. _I want to be something more_ , she thinks but doesn't say. 

He probably hears it anyways. 

"Sounds like you're figuring a few things out." 

Natasha hums. "Perhaps." 

"Hey, look, we've got a lead on Bucky, I've got to go but…stay in touch, all right?" 

"Yeah, yeah, gramps." 

"Sam says hi," Steve says and he's getting good at this, this fucking with her thing. She taught him a little too well, maybe. 

"I'm hanging up on you now, Steve." 

\- 

She keeps on moving but with purpose, now. 

In Calcutta, she helps Banner duck some entirely too interested parties that wouldn't take thanks but no thanks for an answer. A month later and it's Shanghai and she's back to back with Melinda May, never out of the game, not really, pulling a bunch of teenaged girls out of a burning building. 

Another month and it's Moscow, breathing in the sharp winter air, snow clinging to the soft wool of her pea coat. The building she grew up in crumbles before her, gray and peeling, a study in decay. 

There's a sharp creak, a door opening as a family spills out of the entryway to the apartment building, a mother and two daughters laughing and chattering happily in Russian. People live here and it surprises her. It feels wrong; like the whole building should have been condemned, left for dead. 

There's daisies spilling out from beneath the cracks in the pavement, bright yellow and white against cement. Life finds a way, she guesses. 

Here's the thing about just surviving: it's not enough. 

\- 

_Who do I want me to be?_

Well. 

She's working on it.


End file.
